After a (too) short visit to the North Cascades, we made our way to Glacier National Park. Route 20 was closed due to the Walker Creek Fire, so we had to go the very long way around. We split the drive up over two days and spent a night in Spokane to save us from a 12-hour single day drive. The western wildfires sadly did not only impact our driving times, the massive amount of smoke that they produced would affect us every day in the park.

Despite the smoke, the park was very crowded. For the summer of 2021 many of the National Parks had been receiving record-setting numbers of visitors. Due to the mass overcrowding Glacier and other National Parks set up a timed entry system. We were fortunate to be able to secure passes for each day we were at the park. However, the entry passes were only required during the day so people could still get into the park very late in the afternoon or early in the morning. We could start right after sunrise and stay until after sunset and the park would become very crowded. Driving even short distances could take twice as long as it should under normal circumstances.

Glacier is a massive park encompassing more than 1 million acres in northern Montana. Glacier is a park of the Rocky Mountains, there are at least 150 named mountain peaks over 8,000 feet. The highest peak in the park is Mount Cleveland at 10,479 feet. The park contains over 130 named lakes, 1,000 different species of plants and hundreds of species of animals. It has been referred to as the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem”.

The mountains of Glacier National Park have been carved by glaciers over 12,000 years. Almost all the original glaciers have long since disappeared. In the mid-19th century, there were an estimated 150 glaciers in the park. Only 25 active glaciers remained by 2010. Sadly, it is estimated that all the active glaciers may disappear by 2030 if we don’t drastically improve our climate.

Archeological evidence has found that Native Americans first arrived in the Glacier area 10,000 years ago. The Blackfoot lived on the eastern slopes of what later became the park. The Blackfeet Indian Reservation now borders the park in the east while the Flathead Indian Reservation is located to the west and south of the park.

In 1806 the Lewis and Clark Expedition came within 50 miles of the current area of Glacier Park. Numerous explorations in the 1850s helped to shape the understanding of the area that is now the park. In 1885 George Grinnell hired James Schultz to guide him on an expedition into what would become the park. Grinnell was so inspired by the vast beauty of the area that he worked for 20 years to help form the park. It was Grinnell that coined the term “Crown of the Continent”.

After years of lobbying and going through various forms of protection in 1910 President William Howard Taft signed a bill from Congress creating Glacier National Park. The first and only real access to the park was by train. The Great Northern Railway crossed the continental Divide at Marias Pass and built a train station adjacent to the park. The Great Northern Railway built a number of hotels, restaurants and shops. Some were modeled after Swiss architecture. Many of these amazing structures are still there today and in total there are 350 buildings in Glacier listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The most well-known road in the park, and maybe one of the most notable roads in the world, is the Going to the Sun road. Completed in 1932 it is the only road that goes deep into the backcountry of Glacier. The 53-mile-long road bisects the park and brings you over the Continental Divide at Logan Pass some 6,646 feet above sea level.

For our trip we stayed in Whitefish, Montana. It’s about 40 minutes from West Glacier and the main park entrance. We wanted to stay in the park, but ALL the hotels booked up within minutes and we had no luck finding a room inside the park. However, Whitefish turned out to be a wonderful town. It’s a resort town in the Rockies with great views, shopping and restaurants. It did make the days a little longer for driving but gave us lots of good options for food and entertainment.

Our first day in the park we spent trying to get our bearings. We headed into the west entrance and drove around the Lake McDonald area. We got out and explored the waterfront before heading up Going-to-the-Sun-Road. We drove around looking for locations to watch the sunset, stopping at the pull-offs along the switchbacks. We came back down and found a random small parking lot next to Lake McDonald and hiked around the lake shore until finding a great spot to watch the sunset.

The next morning, we headed in super early to the Wild Goose Island Lookout. This may be the most famous view in the park and interestingly also used in the opening to the movie The Shining. Sadly, the smoke from the wildfires really put a damper on the sunrise. Right after the sun came up, we drove to the trailhead for Saint Mary Falls. It was a truly wonderful hike with amazing views all along the way. The falls themselves were in full flow and was a great end to the morning.

We spent the afternoon in town before heading back to the park. However, this time we drove all the way south to the Two Medicine Lakes area. This was an amazing experience, great views even with the smoke. While the drive over to the area was SUPER long it was also full of beauty and wonder the entire way.

After sleeping for not nearly long enough, in the pre-dawn hours we went back into the main area of the park. This time we spent sunrise at the Lake McDonald area. The smoke was just starting to break up and we had a rather nice and peaceful sunrise. Since it was still super early, we hiked the Lower McDonald Falls trail for a while. Afterwards, we enjoyed a wonderful pancake breakfast in the Apgar Village area. We did get a chance to check out the visitor’s center after breakfast.

The rest of the day we explored different areas along Going-to-the-Sun-Road and for sunset we hiked to the Hidden Lake area. It was the first evening without any smoke and we had a wonderful sunset on top of the mountain. However, on the way down, tired for a long day, I was clumsy for a second, tripped and rather hurt myself. I’ll expand on this sometime later.

We stayed in the next morning and I tried to recover a bit. The next afternoon though we went back into the park. We had a great round of mini golf in West Glacier before driving around and spending our last sunset in the park.

Sadly, the next morning we had to head back to Seattle, this is yet another park that we must go back to. There are a million more things for us to see and do here and the few days we had were not enough. We sadly never got a chance to see the Many Glacier area of the park.

We did get to spend one last night in Seattle and hung around Kerry Park and had a rather nice sunset there with the city in the background.